Badge by: Doobster @Mindful Digressions
This week’s prompt is ‘stick’……
It was said that sticks and stones would break my bones.
It was also said to walk softly and carry a big stick.
In the time I have lived the word has come to be associated with so many different things.
When I was in school my teachers carried a stick with which to beat you should you do anything to anger them. You’d get the stick was the expression used.
My fifth class teacher found plenty of reasons to use her stick. She was an old woman, trapped I am sure in a religious life she had become so very disillusioned by.
She’d find fault in most things you did just so she could wail into you with her stick, which she did from a sitting position, as she was too old to stand up apart from when she left the room.
I remember when we were preparing for our confirmation she had us all but memorise the bible stories book we all used.
In those days the Bishop would come round and ‘examine’ the class and see how prepared we were.
In our year he asked us to recite three prayers and that was all. My teacher was disgusted that she had spent so much time preparing us with all the bible stories she could jam down our throats and not one question about them.
In my childhood days sticks were used for all sorts of purposes. They were swords in medieval games, used to knock down fruit from high branches, served as stumps when we played cricket, the one thing our mothers yelled at us to put down before we poked someone’s eye out.
You know I never heard of nor knew any one who’d had their eye poked out by a stick but there must have been some unfortunate ones who did as our mothers loved to warn us of the danger.
Never the less it’s a word we have all carried with us including the suggestion that if you didn’t like something you could stick it where the sun didn’t shine.
Written for: http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-1615/
Morpethroad 
Being of the same generation as you, Michael, I can relate to everything you have said about school and teachers’ methods of chastisement. I’ve had the backs of my legs slapped, the blackboard pointer whacked across my hand and the back of my head slapped so hard I flipped forwards and hit the desk at which I was seated. Not to mention the fear we had every day of being sent to the Headmaster for ‘the cane’ – which, somehow, I managed to avoid. (This was all in the 1950s.) And my mother always warned us about poking our eyes out with sticks! Thank you for the little trip down Memory Lane. 🙂
Thanks Millie, yes those days thankfully are just memories now though my Fifth class teacher made my life a misery I know that…..as a teacher I determined to be everything my teachers weren’t, I can’t say I ever had any teachers who were in any way inspirational……I met those teachers when I became a teacher…..
As you rightly say, Michael, times and attitudes have (thankfully) changed. As a primary school kid I often dreaded going to school. This was when I was in the class of the horrible man who clouted the back of my head – all because I had a tiny ink blot on my page! Not happy memories.
Fun post, Michael! When I was in school we’d get the ruler (12″) when we were naughty. Still a stick though. 😛
My music teacher, an old nun, used that method on me and only reinforced my resentment of piano lessons and piano practice.
Seems many of us of a certain age remember the many uses of sticks. How many times did I hear, “Do you want the stick?” Also, we sharpened the end of sticks to poke through marshmallows to roast over the campfire. My father actually ended up nearly blind in one eye from his sister poking a stick through the outhouse peep-hole he spied on her through. (So you really can get your eye poked out–and should if you deserve it, lol.) Love your last line, Michael. Indeed 😀
I knew someone would come up with a story about an eye being poked by a stick…serve him right…..thanks Mandy glad to see you stop by.
Lol, wouldn’t you know I’d be the one? 😀
In the schools I went to we were never beaten with a stick, or anything else. Seems like such a barbaric practice to me.
That’s right it is exactly that. Consider yourself privileged.
Good use of the prompt.
Thanks so much John.
You did well with the prompt – no stick for you! 🙂 I enjoyed reading your thoughts.
Thank you so much Kate, such a relief to be spared the stick.
This was a great post Michael 🙂 We had sticks at our school too till they went and banned it!